And plus their `long term vision` is set out in the election manifesto so... having a budget 2 months before an election seems a bit pointless to me.

But yeah a couple of key lines of attack (principally the `1930s` spending line, which was bollocks anyway) for Labour have been put out. Apparently Miliband's response was pretty good but I haven't had a chance to read it yet.

but when the big plank of your campaign is that you're trying to portray yourself as the economically responsible party, it kind of undermines all that. Or at least it should. I doubt it will though.

I think this budget will be the one that wins them enough votes to be the biggest party in parliament - the Tory press will lap this up to the extent that it'll crowd out a lot of their pro-UKIP angles from now until May, bringing significant numbers back into the fold.

It's a budget aimed at media barons and their ability to deliver wavering Kippers back to the fold. No one in the centre-ground will be won over by this budget.

if a lot of your budget preamble is you saying `look at all of this economically responsible stuff we've done`. Kind of pissing in the wind bemoaning a budget for being politically strategic. Especially because all of Osborne's have been.

`It's a budget aimed at media barons and their ability to deliver wavering Kippers back to the fold`

Sounds like nonsense to me. You think that we'll see a radical about-turn in Sun, Star and Express editorial lines as a result of this budget? None of the broadsheets have a pro-UKIP editorial line so... can't think of who else. Can't imagine newspaper readership is high amongst UKIP voters.

The centre-ground voters haven't really shifted since 2010. Barely any 2010 CON have gone LAB and vice-versa. Both have haemorrhaged votes to UKIP/Greens/SNP.

Also, you can overplay the `Tory Press` angle all you like but... if Ed Miliband doesn't get Labour the most seats at the next election it's Ed Miliband's fault and Ed Miliband's fault entirely. No-one else.

The press (in particular the right wing press like the Telegraph, Times, Mail and Sun - less so the Express) set the agenda and frame of political discourse in the UK in a way that far outstrips their readership figures despite the BBC's much greater 'penetration'.

All of those papers have been pushing editorial lines, especially on immigration, that mirror UKIP's, and have given the party, and the party line, coverage that vastly outweighs their polled support. The (intended) result is that UKIP support has surged and forced the Tories, and even Labour, to shift rightwards in policy. This holds until elections. We've seen it with the local and European elections that these papers suddenly switch into anti-UKIP mode in the couple of weeks leading up to polling day when they suddenly realise that the Conservative party is in danger of hemorrhaging votes. The fact that the Conservatives have lost votes in these mid-terms is a serious worry, as it means that Conservative seats are at risk of being lost to Labour or even the LibDems.

The budget will be overwhelmingly backed and you'll see coverage of UKIP, as well as the anti-immigration stories, diminish. UKIP have served their purpose, and instead the aim will be to try and bring as many Conservative/UKIP waverers back to the Tories.

I'm not saying that Miliband is blameless - under his watch, when he was supposedly 'Red Ed', he's shed so many votes to the left that it could jeopardise dozens of seats. He's gained most traction, and seen the best poll returns when challenging the Conservative neo-liberal pro-austerity, pro-big business line, but he repeatedly has to ward off bad headlines by coming out with anti-benefit claimant statements that almost certainly lose more voters to the Greens/SNP than they are meant to hang on to in the centre ground.

1. The relationship between `the press` and `its readership` is a lot more complex that you state. Crudely put - what came first? Concerns about immigrants or the stories in the newspapers about immigrants?
2. Newspapers' aims are TO SELL MORE NEWSPAPERS. And very little else. What's easier for them to gain more political influence? To run stories reflecting the pre-existing fears and prejudices of the electorate OR to run stories aimed at making the electorate behave in a certain way?
(Bonus point 3. The Times/The Sun backed Labour throughout the 2000s, and even before)
(Bonus point 4. There hasn't been much UKIP coverage full stop (unless their councillors go mental) recently because Farage has been focussing on work on the ground in South Thanet rather than larking about with the EU/in pubs etc.)

Miliband has `seen the best poll returns when challenging the Conservative neo-liberal pro-austerity, pro-big business line`. Gonna need a citation for that one mate. Miliband's most recent BIG THING was to decry tax avoidance/HSBC etc. And The Tories are now ahead in aggregated opinion polls, and even in marginal polling too. So how does that cause/effect work?

Still think they'll plump for Cameron this year like they did in 2015. But Murdoch's interest is in his papers being POPULAR/THE BEST over all else. He wields his political influence by, y'know, getting all chummy with them afterwards, not through editorial.

and they are much less anti-immgration. Also, anti-immigrant fears are highest amongst those in very white, very monocultural areas with high newspaper readership rates. The two feed off each other, in a race to the ignorant bottom.

2. You're confusing newspapers with their proprietors. Virtually all papers are run at a loss. No proprietor buys a paper to make money - they buy a paper to win influence.

3. Not sure what your point three proves, other than that Blair made his party palatable to Murdoch or gave him assurances re. his media empire. Even if John Smith had taken Labour into the 1997 General Election in the lead in the polls, he wouldn't have got the backing of the Sun.

4. You've seen Farage popping up in all the papers over the past couple of weeks, right? Maybe you haven't. I dunno.

Re. Miliband - I'm thinking of when he's pushed the energy market situation, the anti-privatisation angle (for the NHS, East Coast Mainline and Royal Mail), and the pro-Leveson angle. All of them gave him poll boosts and, despite the negative press, saw him strengthen his lead over the Conservatives even if the Tory share of the vote has changed little.

1. Ok... so what do benefit here from peddling an inaccurate line on immigration?
2. I thought newspapers and their proprietors were inseparable? But yes they do. I'm not denying that proprietors buy newspapers for access to power/political influence. Just that using them to swing elections is pretty much impossible and that there isn't this cartel of proprietors who all collude to `set an agenda` in the same way to generate the same result. It's piffle.
3. That the `right wing` press isn't always a) `right wing` and that b) they follow the political wind as opposed to generating it. Your point about Smith... we'll never know.
4. Yes. Because of specific stories about their conference and his out and out racism re: employment law. But throughout January/February he was SO absent from the news agenda that it led people to start making rumours about his health.

The only time I can remember a `Miliband boost` was his energy price freeze announcement. And I'm not even sure that went through to polling. Miliband's biggest boost was the 2012 budget, in which the Tories fucked up rather than he did something to change the conversation, but... you can't be arsed to provide evidence of this so, neither can I. And plus it's hometime.

are losing more votes to UKIP than they are The Greens. But could be wrong. TheWza will tell you his/Labour's mishandling of/wipeout in Scotland has little to do with either of them not being `left-wing enough`. Not as simple as that.

that showed how a lot of people (mainly Lib Dem, but also from elsewhere) flowed to Labour in the aftermath of the 2010 election, but have since moved on elsewhere since 2012/2013. I'll be damned if I can find them again now, but yes, as I recall more people have gone to UKIP than Green.

Pretty sure the data was pre-SNP jump, so obviously there's a couple of percent gone that way as well that is arguably more harmful than anything UKIP or the Greens are likely to be doing.

Labour's polling issue is Scotland `wipeout` as opposed to anything else. And that's a complex phenomenon which you can't really attribute to EdM. He's played Scotland pretty badly. But then again - which leader hasn't in the last 36 years (and here we come full circle etc.)

Yeah I think we're riffing off the same graph mate - was it the one with the arrows coming off it kind of looking like the Dad's Army opening but flipped 180 degrees?!

Still if it wasn't for Labour bleeding some support to UKIP we wouldn't have had Miliband saying he feels `respect` every time he sees a white van so... swings and roundabouts. 5 more years of the Tories is a fair trade for one of the great political gaffes of our age right...

pointing down, indicating all the people who at 2010 voted for the "don't know what the fuck I believe" party and who now have morphed into the "still don't know what I believe, but I'm not fucking voting for them again" party.

but the number of votes lost that could cost seats. The current constituency (especially marginal constituency) polling shows that the losses to Green/SNP are going to cost more seats than the votes lost to UKIP, even though on a national scale, the former are outweighed by the latter. It sounds a bit odd, but when voters are going to UKIP from Labour in a constituency they tend to also go from the Conservatives in equal or greater numbers. When it's Green/SNP, the same isn't true.

but how many votes they take away from Labour and Conservatives in marginal seats.

In marginal seats where UKIP have a decent showing, they are taking pretty evenly from Conservatives and Labour, cancelling them out. In marginal seats where the Greens have a decent showing, it comes from Labour/Lib Dems and not the Conservatives. The number of seats where the Conservatives are battling for votes with Labour or the LibDems is greater than the number where Labour and the LibDems are battling each other.

Agreed on the SNP votes - they're not coming back to Labour for a long time.

as far as Miliband is concerned. The best he can hope for in Scotland is for sitting MPs to go it alone either on their own record or with as an enticing medley of charm offensive and bullshit as they can muster.

I find it genuinely hard to believe that anyone who's declared they'll vote SNP can be won back to Labour, especially as a result of anything the national party does.

when your job is to rebut the budget, not deliver it, but all he really had to say was:
1. the worst of the austerity is yet to come (doom. gloom); and
2. the deficit hasn't been eliminated as promised by the government within this parliament. DOOM GLOOM.

he should have done some jazz hands or tapdancing or something. He also came across as overly earnest and a bit drippy. And I say this as one of the few people who quite likes the chap.